of the borders (ib. p. 150). According to Knox, it was to the counsel of Hepburn that the martyrdom of Walter Mylne in 1558 was solely due.
After the city of Perth had come into the possession of the lords of the congregation in 1559, they wrote to Hepburn that unless he would come and assist them ‘they could neither save nor spare his place’ (the palace of Scone). He expressed his willingness to come, but as ‘his answer was long of coming,’ the townsmen of Dundee, who had a special grudge against him for the execution of Mylne, proceeded, notwithstanding the remonstrances of Knox and Lord James Stuart, to sack and burn the church and palace of Scone (Knox, i. 359–61). On the triumph of the Reformation he retained the rents of his benefice and the palace of Scone, but in December 1561, along with other prelates, offered a fourth of the benefices for the queen's service (Reg. P. C. Scotl. i. 193–4), on condition that they were guaranteed in the possession of the remainder. This offer was not accepted, but ultimately an arrangement was come to by which the prelates were allowed to retain two-thirds of their rents during their lifetime. The bishop was one of those who with Huntly sent special commissioners to France to advise the queen in returning to Scotland to land at Aberdeen in order to head a movement for the restoration of catholicism (Lesley, Hist. Scotl. p. 294). James Hepburn, fourth earl of Bothwell [q. v.], husband of Mary Stuart, was brought up by the bishop in Spynie Castle, and on 21 July 1567 the bishop was accused of having resetted him, after the earl's flight northwards, within his license of Spynie and other parts of Moray; and on this account he was deprived of his rents (Reg. P. C. Scotl. i. 531). In addition to this he was prosecuted as accessory to the murder of Darnley, but on 28 Nov. 1567 was acquitted (Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1566–8, entry 567). On 1 June 1568 he appeared on summons before the privy council to answer for such things as should be laid to his charge, and he was commanded to remain within the bounds of Edinburgh (Reg. P. C. Scotl. i. 629). In an act of the council of 8 July 1569, in which he is styled ‘ane reverend father in God,’ he and the canons of the cathedral church of Elgin are enjoined, under the threat of being put to the horn, to fulfil their promise of paying a reasonable contribution for the repair of the cathedral (ib. p. 677). He died at Spynie Castle on 20 June 1573, and was buried in the choir of the cathedral. He had seven sons and two daughters, for whom legitimations were passed under the great seal.
[Knox's Works; Buchanan's Detectio; Reg. of the Privy Council of Scotland; Cal. State Papers, For. Ser., reign of Elizabeth; Cal. State Papers, Scott. Ser.; Registrum Episcopatus Moraviensis (Bannatyne Club, 1837); Keith's Scottish Bishops; Gordon's Eccl. Chron. of Scotland, iii. 88.]
HEPBURN, ROBERT (1690?–1712), miscellaneous writer, was born at Bearford, Haddingtonshire, in 1690 or 1691. Giving promise of unusual powers, he was sent to Holland to study civil law, and returned in 1711 to pursue his profession in Scotland. On his return he started a periodical, of two pages in double columns, entitled ‘The Tatler, by Donald MacStaff of the North.’ Lacking the geniality of Steele, of whom he thus proclaimed himself an imitator, Hepburn became too satirical and personal, and his ‘Tatler’ reached only thirty numbers. There is a specimen copy in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, in a collection of miscellanies. Hepburn was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1712, and died the same year.
Three posthumous works attest Hepburn's scholarship and literary faculty. In 1714 appeared at Edinburgh ‘Libellus singularis quo demonstratur quod Deus sit.’ This contains a preface and sixteen short Latin chapters, well and forcibly written, but embodying no novelty of argument. In 1715 was published ‘Dissertatio de Scriptis Pitcarnianis,’ characteristically dedicated to Addison—‘Illustrissimo viro Josepho Addisono Anglo Robertus Hepburnius Scotus S.’ Likewise, in 1715 at Edinburgh, appeared ‘A Discourse concerning a Man of Genius, by Mr. Hepburn; with a poem on the Young Company of Archers by Mr. Boyd.’ The discourse, displaying some power of observation and practical good sense, is in twenty-three brief sections, followed by the poem in heroic couplets.
[Lord Woodhouselee's Life and Writings of Lord Kames, i. 228; Chambers's Eminent Scotsmen; Anderson's Scottish Nation, i. 469.]
HERAPATH, JOHN (1790–1868), mathematician and journalist, born at Bristol on 30 May 1790, was the son of a maltster. After a scanty education he was placed in his father's business, but he managed to find time for study, his favourite subjects being mathematics and physics. In 1815 he married, and soon afterwards gave up business to open a mathematical academy at Knowle Hill, Bristol. He occasionally contributed to the ‘Annals of Philosophy.’ In 1818 he wrote on the ‘Law of Continuity’ (xi. 209), and in 1819 communicated ‘New Demonstrations of the Binomial Theorem’ (xiii. 364).
